Hat Day!
The Mountain is in Austin with the Fwopera road show. Hat Day's just not the same when you're flying solo. Still, I wore my awesome/awful AC Spark Plug baseball cap modified with, you guessed it, Viking horns. What, you don't have a ballcap outfitted with Viking horns? Then, my friend, you haven't lived.

Back in the days before Real Can of Yams was "seven hundred and one ounces of terrible," Murky Transport Disaster was "the best band for all the wrong reasons." MTD had a Viking song called "The Viking Song." For the live performance of "The Viking Song" we decided that each member of Murky Transport Disaster had to sport a Viking hat. And because the BTWay is to go that extra mile in the name of showmanship, each member of MTD didn't need to wear a mere Viking hat, we each had to wear a distinct Viking hat (and please forgive me if I screw up who was wearing which hat):

The Mountain of Love - a Viking helmet with faux fur around the base of the horns
K. Steeze - a Viking helmet with really big horns
Mr. Coliadis - a Viking helmet, almost identical to the Mountain's, but without the fur
The Professor - a Viking helmet with only one horn, worn unicorn-style
Ms. Ele - a Minnesota Vikings baseball cap
The Last Angry Man - an AC Spark Plugs baseball cap with Viking horns

BTW South Song of the Day
Work and poverty and missing The Buckeye have been taking their toll on the Mountain, putting him in an ill humor for much of the last week. We'll get the Song of the Day back on track as soon as we can, because nobody enjoys it more than us. Nobody, you hear me? Nobody!

Meanwhile, I just bought five songs "about" Mars from iTunes and they're all winners! Prior to inputting "Mars" into the Power Search (inspired by plotting my hypothetical Martian Manhunter series, which is now getting the full The Magic of Shazam! treatment), I'd never even heard of any of these songs, much less heard them, and they're all even better than the thirty second snipets that convinced me to buy them in the first place. Woot!

Aqua, "Back from Mars"
Hannah Russell, "Mars"
The Misfits, "Mars Attacks"
Monsters From Mars!, "Avanti"
The Skatalites, "Trip to Mars"

Something Wicked This Way Comes
Recently, via the Netflix subscription service, I saw a brilliant film, Scotland, Pa., a hilarious interpretation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. The writing credits: "Written and directed by Billy Morrissette. Story by William Shakespeare." In mentally composing this post I resolved that henceforth I shall call motion pictures that retain the Shakespearean dialogue "versions" of a given play, while films adapted into the vernacular will be called "interpretations."

Versions
Macbeth (1979, Ian McKellan as Macbeth!) from The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606)
Titus (1999) from The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus (1594)
Romeo + Juliet (1996) from The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1594)

Interpretations
The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew (1983) from The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1600)
10 Things I Hate About You (1999) from The Taming of the Shrew (1593)
Scotland, Pa. (2001) from The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606)

Getting back to Scotland, Pa., the film is both uproariously funny and pleasingly faithful to Macbeth. If you need more enticement: Maura Tierney as Pat McBeth (Lady Macbeth) and Christopher Walken as Lieutenant McDuff (Macduff). And it's set in the 1970s. See the movie, you'll thank me later.